


A Question of Inclination

by orphan_account



Series: Inclinations [1]
Category: due South
Genre: Asexual Character, Community: ds_kinkmeme, Multi, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:21:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt on the due South kink meme:</p><p>"F/K. They are best friends and flatmates, and Fraser is asexual. Ray is not, and he pines."</p><p>My interpretation of the prompt is pretty literal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Inclination

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this story, be sure to check out DesireeArmfeldt's related story, "Not That Kind of Dangerous," linked at the end.

When Ray goes out on dates, which is not often and only when insistent friends or relatives have set him up with someone who is just as uncomfortable as he is, he’s upfront with them.  “Let’s get one thing straight,” he’ll tell his date after they’ve ordered their drinks but before they’ve picked up their menus (he’ll say “settled” if the date happens to be a man).  “I’m in love with someone else, that’s not gonna change, so if you’re looking for something other than a nice night out with a reasonably nice guy, you might want to bail now.”

Some bail.  A surprising number don’t, and instead look relieved because, Ray figures, if they’re the right age to be pressured into a set-up with him, they’ve probably got their own issues going on.  Sometimes they’ll even tell him.  Recovering from a past abusive relationship.  In recovery for three weeks, but they haven’t told their families, so the last thing they want or need is any kind of romantic or sexual involvement.

He’s had some good times on those various blind dates.  Once the pressure is off, they both feel like they can be themselves and it actually leads to a pretty good time.  Sometimes it leads to sex, if Ray feels up to explaining that while he might be in love, it’s unrequited so he’s not cheating.  And that’s pretty great, too, even if he’s not with the person he wants to be with.  Frequently his partners are in the same boat.

Other times, the need gets bad enough that he goes to a bar, always a gay bar, and picks someone up.  There’s no need for explanations in those situations, because no one wants to ask questions.  There are so many men looking over their shoulders, or men with white lines on the third finger of their left hands, or who don’t even bother to remove their wedding rings, that no one wants to know anything except “Where are we going to go, how are we going to do this?”  Ray stays away from the ones who don’t take off their wedding rings.  If they’re willing to run their hands over a stranger’s body while wearing the ring someone put on them with love in her heart, Ray doesn’t want to be with them even for a couple of hours. 

Sometimes, he’ll take a chance with the ones he thinks of as “the white-line boys.”  That’s when he asks, sidles up to them, points his beer bottle at the relevant finger and says, “Hey, divorce is a bitch, huh?”  He’s pretty good at telling the ones who really are recently divorced from the ones who just have the ring in their pocket.  He kind of likes the recently divorced ones; they’re usually experimenting, want someone to show them the ropes without the pressure of commitment. 

He doesn’t do that too often, maybe four times a year.  Even that much, though, makes him feel like some kind of sex addict.  Between the dates and the pick-ups, he’s had lots of partners (about six a year, multiplied over six years), he doesn’t do repeats, but sometimes he’ll go for six or seven months without sex.  Sex with a partner.  He jerks off maybe twice a week, so he figures he’s not really addicted to sex.  But living with the Monk of the Western World would make anyone think of themselves as a sex addict even if, “Well, for most people it’s a basic human need, Ray, and nothing to be ashamed of.”

At first, Ray thought it was about Victoria, that Fraser was so focused on her and the pain she caused that he was literally gunshy.  One night, shortly after he and Fraser got a (two bedroom) place together, he said, “You know, you’ll have to get past her eventually.  Even if it’s not with me, you deserve someone.”

Fraser had made with the eyebrow thing and said, “It’s not a question of ‘deserving,’ Ray.  It’s more a question of inclination.”

Ray got that, or thought he did.  After Stella, there was Fraser and Ray’s bisexuality, which had always been an abstract concept to him, was suddenly front and center as an important part of who he was, who he could love.  It took him awhile to wrap his head around that, that the culture had changed since he was in high school, that _he_ had changed, that it was getting better for people like him.  So maybe Fraser was a bit behind on that particular curve.  He certainly was sensitive toward people of various sexualities they encountered, but it was one thing to be okay with gay people out in the world; it was something else entirely to be okay with yourself.

But when he’d told Fraser that it was fine, it was great, he could wait until Fraser was ready, Fraser had looked pained.  “There’s nothing to wait for, Ray,” he’d said.  “Victoria was an aberration, in more ways than one.  I simply don’t have the same urges most people do.”

And Ray still hadn’t gotten it.  Thought Fraser was repressing or something, kept looking for a key that would unlock Fraser’s sexuality so that it could come tumbling out, hopefully directed toward Ray.

But before long, he realized that it wasn’t going to happen.  Fraser just wasn’t interested.  While they had separate bedrooms, they shared a bathroom, and Fraser was not at all body-shy.  He’d seen Ray’s morning wood on several occasions, never once saying anything about it.  They traded laundry duty, and Fraser had never said anything if Ray’s sheets were a little rank from something other than sweat. 

Once, Ray had been so far gone he’d deliberately humped himself against the bed, rather than jacking off and catching his come with tissues, somehow convincing himself that if Fraser could only see the evidence, that would somehow change things.  Later, once again in his right mind, he’d blushed, sincerely embarrassed that he’d let himself get that carried away in his own desperation, when he handed over his laundry, and said, “Hey, something happened there, you want to trade chores?”  Fraser had shrugged and said he felt like getting the groceries that week, so Ray had done laundry.

Ray had never seen Fraser aroused, no morning wood, no slight flush over a steamy sex scene in a movie they were watching (and, man, those art house films Fraser favored sometimes haunted Ray’s dreams for days).  When Ray did the laundry, Fraser's sheets, which were dark blue for Christ’s sake, were completely unmarred.

Ray’d finally had to force himself to confront the truth: Fraser really, honestly did not care about sex.  He had to force himself to understand it as a motivator for any human behavior.  Once, and only once, he’d given Ray a clue about how he felt about his own sexuality, or lack thereof.  It was during one of those art house movies, several months after Fraser had tried to explain why he would never be with Ray, be with _anyone_ , that way.  Ray hadn’t been on the prowl in weeks, hadn’t jerked off in nearly as long, had been putting himself through self-imposed chastity just to see if he could live like that, like Fraser, and the scene was so hot, the actors very clearly doing their jobs well (something Canadian about a guy trying to fulfill all his sexual fantasies before the world ended, and a woman who was a longstanding virgin who didn’t want to die that way; it was like something Ray would dream up as a scenario that might possibly lead to him and Fraser having sex).

Ray had tipped his head back, closing his eyes, swallowing convulsively, trying not to moan over the constant frustration his life had become (and also, the movie was really sad which made the scene even hotter somehow).  When he’d opened his eyes again, Fraser was looking at him, wiping a tear from his own eye, and Ray knew it was partly because of the sad movie but also partly because of Ray.  “If I could, I would, Ray,” Fraser said, sounding so sad and regretful.  “I suppose I could…” Fraser made a gesture, but Ray snarled at him.

“I can’t take that,” he said, and stomped off to his bedroom to jerk off, allowing himself to imagine Fraser doing him a favor, a _fucking_ favor, and that fantasy made him feel as guilty as sex had ever made him feel, like the mere _idea_ was violating Fraser.  He’d cried before and after, one of the few times he’d ever allowed himself to wallow in the sheer hopelessness of his situation.

Of course he still fantasizes about Fraser all the time, but it's always a slightly different Fraser, one who is willing, _eager_ to take what Ray wants so desperately to give.  He feels much less guilty about those fantasies, because they're almost about a different guy, a guy who looks like Fraser but isn’t.

So he sticks to his six nights a year with partners, eight to twelve nights a month with himself regimen.  And Fraser has stopped giving him sympathetic, apologetic looks.  As for Ray...well, Ray can live with Fraser as his friend, his partner in all things but this, because he’s got as much of Fraser as anyone will ever have.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The movie is "Last Night" (1998), written and directed by Don McKellar, and the scene in question is between Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) and Donna (the absolutely brilliant Tracy Wright, of happy memory).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Not That Kind of Dangerous](https://archiveofourown.org/works/330914) by [DesireeArmfeldt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt), [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)
  * [Love You Can’t Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/332529) by [DesireeArmfeldt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt), [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




End file.
